–So your position is only for initiates?

–I guess it’s esoteric in its way. But there is bottomless gallows

humor in it. It’s not fancy or obscure esoteric. It’s not sentimental-
rich-old-woman-with-Tarot-cards esoteric. It’s just hard to stom-
ach. I sleep in the fire, and you can too, for the low cost of a
monthly subscription. Or maybe it was a monthly prescription.
But back to the topic: George Steiner, in his Heidegger book, goes
on about the impossibility of thinking the Shoah and in general
the staggering evil and darkness of the 1940s.
–And you disagree?
–Yeah. We can think it just fine. We haven’t become angels since
then. We are the same monkeys, temporarily more civilized.
–Don’t you prefer us that way ?
–The civilized part of me does, tautologically. But there are sleep-
ing dogs in us that like it the other way.
–And you are warning us against them.
–No. I’m not warning anyone about anything. I’m a break in the
usual programming. Or I’d like to be.
–Which is?
–This usual programing is a sermonizing ’intellectual.’ Perhaps a
’youth pastor’ comedian on HBO. Or a click-bait doom prophet
on NPR. I try to see that entire industry of resentment and fear
from the outside.
–Your stuff is dark, though. It might scare some people. You look
at your fellow human beings, and yourself, as an indifferent alien
1
might.
–Thinking about existence and history is not necessarily safe and
clean and pure. Esoteric. Not for the single mother maybe.
–Reminds me of your cynical statements about academic philoso-
phy.
–They are obvious statements to make. My ’work’ is saying the
stupidly obvious stuff, one thing at a time.
–What’s wrong with academic philosophy?
–It’s not really about right or wrong. It’s pointless to complain.
It’s about the comedy of institutionalized critical thought. It’s
about middle class undergrads rushing through the system like
airplane passangers being rushed through metal detectors, being
taught and tested by middle class professors. It’s the banality, the
conformity, the decisions that have already been made.
–Such as being a nice middle-class type of person?
–Exactly.
–Is there something wrong with that?
–No. I basically want that lifestyle myself. I want ’enough’ money.
I want to do work that requires an education. I want a little fucking
house on the prairie.
–So what’s the problem ?
–My personal objection or distaste is that they don’t call it some-
thing like ’philosophy for those who have implicitly decided to
basically conform.’ Your thoughts are graded. The instructor

2
does not defeat your arguments. He kills you, if he wants to, with
low numbers. And these numbers ultimately affect you, if only a
little, in the marketplace.
–So, in its tiny way, it’s a violent situation. An irrational situation.
–Yes. And tolerating the asymmetrical communication structure
is itself a manifestation of ignorance or impotence on the student’s
part. So maybe it’s a good lesson to learn. Maybe embarrassing
situations teach us the most.
–So you are pointing out the absurdity of trying to learn critical
thinking but paying to be bullied by someone who is allowed to
’cheat’ in an argument by simply deciding you are wrong.
–Yes. And I did well in my philosophy classes by the way. I mostly
bit my tongue and played the game. But I was frustrated in an
ultimately productive way by the humiliating situation. In certain
contexts, it’s ’invisible’ or ’receding’ structure of the communica-
tion that is its primary message.
–For instance, the fact that the professor has gradebook power
over his or her students is the main thing.
–Yes. And we call it sexual harassment when a manager puts
sexual pressure on an employee.
–OK. But in intro classes, students are mostly expected to regur-
gitate in the proper format.
–That’s true. And that’s also sad and laughable. But my point
may generalize to a typical point about the unreality of school. But
we can look at the game of philosophy and see that it’s ultimately
about originality. The famous philosophers were revolutions that
3
become institutions. So there again we see the strangeness of
institutionalizing critical thought.
–Gentrification comes to mind.
–Yes. The safe middle class wants to have its cake and eat it too.
–What ideal do you judge them against though?
–To Socrates getting himself killed. To Diogenes jerking off in the
street. To Kojeve working in government, maybe also a spy. They
enacted their philosophy, put their money or their skin where their
mouth was.
–So the situation or context of a classroom is unreal.
–For deep thoughts about existence, yes. Though one could imag-
ine wild exceptions, and a professor getting fired for a nervous
breakdown. And I’m not complaining. Nothing is more boring
than a complaint, and nothing is funnier than unhappiness. It’s
more like waking up and laughing at a strange dream.
–Let me just say that it is hard to make sense of someone who
isn’t trying to change anything, who says he is not complaining
and yet points out the absurdity of the world. Then this theme of
the funniness of unhappiness. Are you just joking then?
–I’m saying nothing that’s new. I’m arranging some influences,
some of them ancient, looking for the right tone. That’s all. I’m
nobody. But, weirdly, being nobody turns out to make my project
possible. And I’m half-joking. Gallows humor. Tone is everything.
–Being nobody is important because you can avoid the usual con-
sequences of honesty?

4
–Yes. But at the cost of being able to take credit. Even if it’s all
been said before, I do think I’ve found a lever, a tone, a way of
putting it together.
–So it’s a bit of a sacrifice. Why would that bravery have been
stupid?
–Pearls before swine. I understand what that means in a new way
now.
–That sounds arrogant.
–Yes, it is arrogant or elitist. Not every way of looking at the
world is appropriate or possible for anyone who happens to come
along. As obvious as this is, it does violate some kind of default
universalism that’s part of us these days.
–So some people are unworthy of certain insights.
–Or uninterested. Or even offended. The exclusion cuts both
ways. I’ve studied some of the public personalities who wave the
rebel flag. I like some of them better than others. But if you shoot
your mouth off in an exciting way, the way that makes the effort
worthwhile, you’d better be ready to make a career of it.
–And you don’t want to get caught up in that, assuming it was
possible, because surely it’s not easy.
–It’s not easy, and it’s not clearly desirable. My lever is an analysis
of the politician. i mean the metaphorical politician, which is
what famous people are forced to become. Like Jordan Peterson.
Brilliant guy, but fell into some traps, it seems to me. Traps he
was in a position to avoid, theoretically and intellectually. But
he’s just a human. People become their masks.
5
–But you’ve also said we are what we do.
–I repeated it. And I believe that. So a mask is something like an
unrealistically limit notion of the self. As Nietzsche said, we enjoy
thinking we are simpler than we are. We take a little break now
in then with the fantasy that we are this or that mask we wear
(so the mask is also for the mirror.)
***